Internet, also referred to as an "internetwork," is a set of computer networks, possibly dissimilar, joined together by means of gateways that handle data transfer and the conversion of messages from the sending network to the protocols used by the receiving network (with packets if necessary). When capitalized, the term "Internet" refers to the collection of networks and gateways that use the TCP/IP suite of protocols.
The Internet has become a cultural fixture as a source of both information and entertainment. Many businesses are creating Internet sites as an integral part of their marketing efforts, informing consumers of the products or services offered by the business or providing other information seeking to engender brand loyalty. Many federal, state, and local government agencies are also employing Internet sites for informational purposes, particularly agencies which must interact with virtually all segments of society such as the Internal Revenue Service and secretaries of state. Providing informational guides and/or searchable databases of on-line public records may reduce operating costs. Of increasing importance is the use of the Internet and commercial transactions. Increasing amounts of commerce occur on the Internet. Entire businesses exist only on the Internet to sell goods and services to consumers. Other businesses are establishing a presence on the Internet to reach new consumers.
Currently, the most commonly employed method of transferring data over the Internet is to employ the World Wide Web environment, also called simply "The Web." Other Internet resources exist for transferring information, such as File Transfer Protocol (FTP) and Gopher, but have not achieved the popularity of the Web. In the Web environment, servers and clients affect data transaction using the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), a known protocol for handling the transfer of various data files (e.g., text, still graphic images, audio, motion video, etc.). Information is formatted for presentation to users by standard page description language, the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). In addition to basic presentation formatting, HTML allows developers to specify "links" to other web resources identified by a Uniform Resource Locator (URL). The URL is a special syntax identifier defining a communications path to specific information. Each logical block of information accessible to a client, called a "page" or a "Web page," is identified by a URL. The URL provides a universal, consistent method for finding and accessing this information, not necessarily for the user, but mostly for the user's Web "browser." A browser is a program capable of submitting a request for information identified by a URL at the client machine. Retrieval of information on the Web is generally accomplished with an HTML compatible browser. The Internet also is widely used to transfer applications to users using browsers.
Algorithms have been developed to parse grammar of one language and translate that grammar and meaning to another language in a process known as Machine Translation. Machine Translation has limited accuracy due to the idiosyncracies of language such as idiomatic usage and context. One alternative to algorithms for Machine Translation is known as "in-memory translation" in which a sentence or phrase in one language is found in a database with its counterpart translation. Counterpart translation is meant to be the domain (idiom/context) specific translation of the sentence/phrase. This database of translations is accurate because it was created manually by human translators. The downside to this process is that the database for a limited domain can contain over 17 million sentences and phrases as a result of continuous updating and the addition of new entries which greatly impacts performance in a negative manner. Machine Translation is not limited by domain, but its accuracy is less than in-memory translation.